Hacker News Reader

Comment by basch | Hacker News Reader

The other interesting thing about this one, is that they dont even attempt to license content do they? They dont have any content costs?

Theres been this fake (steal) it till you make it, wild west approach to growth. Youtube, Buzzfeed, Imgur. You just host anybodys content regardless of if the poster is the owner, and once you get to scale, then you handle copyright and creating your own content so you arent as dependent on external creators.

But in Giphys case, they never have to take the extra step. Because they are so short, they are much more likely to pass fair use, and they can just host anybodys anything, barring some illegal fringes, without having to pay for the rights.

View on HN

GIPHY has agreements with pretty much all the major content studios, including ones historically protective of their content, such as HBO, the NFL and Disney.

I think the main problem is not movie studios (where fair use is likely to apply as we're talking about a 10-second GIF out of a 1h+ movie) but all the meme creators on Reddit and other social networks. I assume those make up the majority of GIFs out there and as of now they aren't being compensated or even credited properly.

This is an unpopular opinion, but if the meme creator violated copyright when they made the meme, and they want credit for their “derived version” then they need a license.

I disagree that they violated copyright. If they're using a screenshot or a short clip from a movie that is definitely fair use. On the other hand, what Giphy is doing is copying the entire meme.

What? That's absolutely not guaranteed to be fair use. AFAIK there's no precedent for such things. And even if random people making memes is fair use, Giphy would still be violating the copyright of the original media by hosting nearly unedited clips for commercial reasons. The vast, vast, vast majority of memes are not transformative.

What would be the infringement? I would say any animated GIF (or whatever) should be defined as fair use across the board, since it's impossible to use it for anything other than criticism or comment. It's not exactly like Beastie Boys vs. Chambers Bros, but it rhymes with it.

Isn’t there a gif of the entire first Shrek movie?

Perhaps, but that's clearly not covered by fair use. Posting the entire Shrek movie as a GIF is not creating a "new meme".

a heavily accelerated 49px by 49px gif seems okay

>GIPHY has agreements with pretty much all the major content studios, including ones historically protective of their content, such as HBO, the NFL and Disney.

Incredible. What a strange time we live in.

This makes me wonder, does Disney have any say if someone uploads a home-made Mickey gif that is controversial or otherwise damaging to their brand?

Facebook, Twitter and Google (YouTube) have used that strategy to ignore their obligations to filter their content by getting into some type of "too bug to fail" situation and throwing their hands up when they are asked to do their duty. Those products didn't fill a niche by innovating, they filled a niche by ignoring the obligations that were preventing others from filling the niche.

"Behind every great fortune is a crime."

> Facebook, Twitter and Google (YouTube) have used that strategy to ignore their obligations to filter their content by getting into some type of "too bug to fail" situation and throwing their hands up when they are asked to do their duty

I don't think this is quite fair to YouTube. They've spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing ContentID. It's not perfect, but it's without a doubt the most sophisticated system to date. It's a difficult problem, but I don't see how you can say they've "thrown up their hands".

I thought the DMCA reporting system was basically made for Google (maybe by Google???) so they could have a middle-ground. They shift responsibility to content owners, through the law; then sell themselves as virtuous through ContentID and keep enough infringing content to not too deleteriously effect their platform -- collecting ad revenue even on content they allow that's infringing.

You can say what you like, but that's genius level politics-business IMO.

no their problem is that the DMCA system sucks as it wasn't even written this century (1998), so they created ContentID as a response. They do benefit from the way the system exists currently because of this since the cost of developing a competitor to ContentID is so seemingly prohibitively expensive that nobody else tries to do what YouTube does.

They built it after they got huge and were sued by Viacom and others.

I own and operate a flea market. I sell stall usage to merchants who sell their goods at the flea market.

Am I responsible when stolen goods are sold from my stalls?

I own and operate an RV park. Someone is selling illegal drugs from one of the RVs.

Am I responsible for the illegal drug sales?

> Am I responsible for the illegal drug sales?

You might not be liable for the sale itself but, depending on the details, you could definitely still have serious legal risk.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/criminal-acts-activi...

Investors reward asking for forgiveness, not permission. Just ask Uber.

I wonder if it's similar to music, where you can play a short piece without compensating the artist? Since most gifs are <5 seconds, it's not content stealing.

it is still stealing[1].

fair use is an affirmative defense, where you say "yes i stole it, but the government should not protect the content owner from me," similar to "yes i injured them, but it was self defense and they do not deserve compensation."

[1]intellectual property violations are not theft in the strictest sense of the word, they don't remove the original. stealing in this context is colloquial.

Stealing is illegal, as is assault, and you are not convicted of assault in cases of self-defense. Similarly, calling fair use "government sanctioned stealing" is a bit of a stretch.

That's exactly what it is. Fair use is a government granted exception to intellectual protectionism. The government is the one determining what counts as intellectual property violations, and what counts as exempt from punishment.

Without intellectual property law, you would be free to copy anything. The barrier to copying is the government. The free pass to flaunt their rule, when qualified, is also the government.

I fail to see how this situation differs from the distinction between assault and self-defense.

assault and self defense were my analogy of something similar. im saying they are not different in kind. akin to self defense being government sanctioned murder.

Giphy has dozens of people who are paid to create gifs

I don't think fair use was meant to be something where you base your entire business around other people's content.

Business models have been created upon flimsier foundations. Come on, capitalists: you've taught us for decades that if someone can make it work, it's above criticism. Are we now discovering moral constraints on profit?

Maybe this is a win for everyone then if content owners and creators are able to get paid as a result

Reply on news.ycombinator.com